Meeting Abstract
Caring for offspring often requires various behavioral and biological tradeoffs, such as decreased immune function, as parents prioritize reproductive efforts over personal survival and growth. Using the model of the rock dove, we investigated the relationship of prolactin, a hormone essential for facilitating parental care behaviors, with gene activity of its receptor in the spleen, an organ whose function is critical to the maintenance of the vertebrate lymphatic system. We found that prolactin receptor expression in the spleen of both sexes is dynamic, mirroring circulating hormone patterns and significantly increasing when chicks first hatch and during nestling care. Now we are testing whether elevated levels of circulating prolactin characteristic of these time points are the cause of increased prolactin receptor expression in the spleen, and how this affects spleen function.
